"Is it okay if I totally trash your office?" It's a question Elyn Saks once asked her doctor, and it wasn't a joke. A legal scholar, in 2007 Saks came forward with her own story of schizophrenia in her autobiography, The Center Cannot Hold. Her illness is controlled by drugs and therapy but ever-present. In this powerful talk, she asks us to see people with mental illness clearly, honestly and compassionately.
As a law scholar and writer, she speaks for the rights of mentally ill people. It's a gray area: Too often, society's first impulse is to make decisions on their behalf. But it's a slippery slope from in loco parentis to a denial of basic human rights. Saks has brilliantly argued for more autonomy -- and in many cases for a restoration of basic human dignity.
Discussion Questions (Some of these will be addressed by our guest, Kathy Grossen):
For our guest Kathy: Do you have any sense of how our community’s care for the mentally ill compares to other areas?
Do we treat mentally ill people differently than we do people with other illnesses? Why?
Obviously treating mental illness has great costs, both financial and otherwise. What are some of the costs of NOT treating mental illness?
For our guest Kathy: Is there anything new in treatment of mental illness that you can talk about?
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